Unfortunately, there is no way to escape the tremendous hype surrounding the latest Batman film ‘The Dark Knight’. It spoils a viewer’s experience by raising the expectations to an unrealistic level. Unbelievably, just after I saw the film yesterday, I realized that even the hype couldn’t prepare me for such a fantastic experience. Christopher Nolan’s creation not only appeals to the average film goer but also to the critics establishing a new benchmark against which comic book films will be judged against. In fact, the term ‘comic book movie’ will no longer be understood as a euphemism for ‘bunch of crap appealing to the comic book fans’ anymore.
This multi-climatic, multi-layered, and multi-thematic film is an excellent cinematisation of an epic struggle between good and evil. Through excellent dialogues and almost heart stopping action sequences, the story unfolds rapidly and constantly keeps you guessing. While most action films try hard to come up with one clever climatic arc, Nolan’s Joker gives the audience a maddening parade of climatic moments one after another.
Joker - Best Villain Ever
The biggest highlight of ‘Dark Knight’ is undoubtedly the character of Joker. Though many phsychotic characters have appeared in Hollywood, Heath Ledger’s Joker is path-breaking in many ways:
He is an absolute. There is a no background story. He himself gives multiple interpretation of his disfigurement. No attempt is made to humanise or even demystify the character.
His disfigurement makes him a freak, which he further relishes and emphasizes with make-up. His unkempt and battered appearance is hardly scary, but add the body language and intonations of a psychopath and the result is disturbingly real.
He is arguably not an evil character simply because he has no moral compass. He master-minds situations which involve dire outcomes yet leaves the details to chance. He, in his own words, is Chaos. He proves that sanity or civility is based on the illusion of order that humans have created. The absence of order brings out the latent insanity in everyone. It is in this chaos that Joker thrives.
As Joker aptly tells Batman in a memorable scene - What would I do without you? You complete me.
Note this currently works only if you have Firefox installed
The Hindu is is one of the newspapers I have great respect for. I am allergetic to fresh newsprint, so I have no choice but to read their online edition even if I have subscribed to the print edition. But their website badly needs a redesign. However, in this Web2.0 era you are not at the mercy of the site admins to do something about it. You can improve your browsing experience in 2 steps:
Point your firefox to the Greasemonkey add-on page and install the add-on. Now restart Firefox before you go to step 2. Don’t worry all your open tabs will be restored.
Sometimes the biggest reason people choose Linux is that they can choose to change Linux they way they want. However, majority of the people believe that no matter how much you change/customize Linux it will never match the eye candy of other desktop OSes. Frankly I never thought that the font rendering in Ubuntu can match that of OSX or even Windows.
Until I came across this tip in Ubuntu Forums. I would say this is the single biggest improvement in the appearance of Ubuntu desktop. By just one command, you can improve the font rendering of virtually every application on Linux. Check out the following screenshot after implementing this tip:
Please note that all the jokes below are in Malayalam. Salim Kumar is a Malayalam film comedian who often pairs with Dileep with a knack for witty one-liners. These jokes are mostly from the Salim kumar communities in Orkut. Many thanks to all Salim kumar fans
»Thilakkam:
onnam class muthal kanjavu valichirunenkil
chalpalannu ippo english parayamayirunnu…
»Chathikkaatha Chanthu:
Q. Ithu aarude kottaramanu?
Ithu madya thiruvitankoor bharichirunna oru rajavinte kottaramanu..peru sasi maharajavu…
»KalayanaRaman
Trying to break the coconut besides the lady and the lady falls to the pool of water and SK says
‘Yenta oru shabdham ketathu???’
‘Thenga odachappo oru piece vellathil poyathaanu’
»Chadikaatha chandhu
“Im Micheal Elias ,JAckson Elias,Vikram Elias”
Thenkashipattanam
salimkumar to dilip:
nammal kaanaan pokunnath devootiyeyalle allathe mammotiyeyallalo.
»
Salim Kumar is reading the classifieds section in the newspaper…“Varanmaare aavashyamundu……………………AASHWAASAM KANDAAL MAATHRAM PRATHIBHALAM. Eh?? Ithu veraiy parasyamaanallaiy…oh..thetti vaayichu”
»
“Iyaal enthu pani aado e kaanickkunne…Thanne kondu njan thottallo..I ALL SO FAILED OF YOU.”
»
nee sahakarikukayanengil ee kalavara namukoru maniyarayakkam…
»
Kannimasam vanno ennariyan pashuvinu calendar nokkenda aavashyam illa (Dileep was trying to flirt with Navya Nair and denying the relationship to Salim Kumar and Innocent).
»
dharalam mudra patrangal vendi varum ..
namakku documentry thayyarakkande…
»
the home appliances of the two families u r the link………………..no…….. no………… no…………u r the link of the link. the two families attached to hte bathroom ur families food and accomodation. wat do u mean……………oh angnonnum illa ……….neymeen…..chalameen…….ailameen…..silopimee……..emmmmmmm………poor boy english polum arinjukooda enittu ennodu speachan vannirikkunnu………..malayalees………………
»
End of the first night
salim: ho neram velutho,itha cash
wife: muzhuvanum undallo alle…
»
In pulivaal kalyana
“sangeetham padikanamenna mohavumayi njaan chennu kayariyathu oru singatthinte madayilayirunnu….- usthad alavaladhi khaan
avasaanam guruvinte vaayil oru pidi manal vaari ittu yathrayayi…by the by njaan vishayattil ninnum pinmaariyo…where is the lyrics….gagapamaaaaa….ahah subash subash…..idadanakkam…gujarathi kalthala kettyiya malayalee pennanu njaan panjabiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…..
»
Ee Bloody Indians and malayalees pranchu nadakkunnu..enikku dufaiyil kooli paniyanennu…
nattil oru image undakiyedukkananu MANAVALAN N SONS enna ee boardum..Eee nhanum ..pinne ee pipe um
Thenkashipattanam
sk: da!! aa kaalede nottam athra sheriyalla..
dileep: athinu ninakkentha??
sk: ninakku prashnam onnum illallo, njan alle purakil nilkunnathu…
»
Ningalku avishyamullathu panamanu.
ente kayyil avishyathinnu kuduthal ullathum pannamanu
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salim: ee manushyarokke janikkunnathinu munpu aadine(goat) theettichirunnathaaraa??
mammootty: athu………..(thinking)……..ithu orumaathiri mattedathe answeraanu
salim: che njaanathu chodikkan paadillaayirunnu
»
Bus stoppil ninna bussu kittum , full stoppil ninna fullu kittumo.. potte oru pintengilum kittumo???
»
actor:(Tohis dad) Venda pappa.
Salim:O sarinte peru pappan ennano Ente perum pappan ennanu.Nice to meet u
»Thommanum makkalam
ee kadhina pottana kanumbo.. enikku ente achane orma varum…
ente achan oru vedikkettapakadathila marichathe.. (laughs)..entha cheyya..achante oru kaaryam
Web Development is now getting dominated by frameworks. After the initial hype of Rails, Python based frameworks are getting more popularity especially after the release of Google App Engine. Nobody seems to be interested in building websites using PHP, even if they are highly experienced in PHP. This could mean two things:
There will be more demand in Indian IT companies for PHP skills similar to Perl scripting skills these days :mrgreen:
There will be soon be a viable competitor to the immensely popular Wordpress blogging platform from the Python/Ruby world
I have nothing against Wordpress. In fact, it is one of the easiest tools to deploy. But with tools like cPanel, deployment could be no longer a deciding factor for blogging platforms.
Coming back to the topic of Python Web Frameworks, there is a multitude of options. I have used some of these framworks and found them to be ‘pythonic’ in different ways:
Django Well documented. Tightly Coupled and ‘Batteries Included’
Pylons Extremely flexibility to Plug and Play components. ‘Fun to Hack’
web.py Great for beginners. Entire framework ‘fits in your head’
Pylons looks most appealing to me. So far it looks like the underdog largely overshadowed by Django’s presence lacking the marketing or love it deserves. A few weeks back I would have complained about the lack of Pylons tutorials on the web. A google search brought up several links pointing to the wiki tutorial. As many have pointed out, the wiki tutorial is too long and complicated for beginners. It would easily put off a beginner. It took me quite some time to realise that the best place to start learning Pylons is the Pylons Documentation itself and the best Pylons tutorial is the Flickr Search. Going through the documentation is almost feels like reading a book with every concept explained in detail.
Pylons currently seems to the having an edge over Django for enterprise application due to its well tested interface with SQLAlchemy. Django seems to be having a fairly recent branch for SQLAlchemy integration. Pylons typically uses Python eggs and VirtualEnv for deployment which is might seem a little complex to beginners, but once you try it once it is actually quite convenient. Most of the installation can be done from the command-line and it will be nearly an independent sandbox for Pylons development. However it might take sometime to understand other aspects of using python eggs such as uninstallation and creation of new eggs. I haven’t had much success with making a portable version of my Pylons installation on Windows though :(
My favourite templating engine is Genshi because it is very designer friendly(which also means it works with the tools a Designer has, not just that it is easy for a Designer to learn). I can easily do all HTML designing directly on my Genshi templates because they are valid HTML or XML documents. Almost all of Genshi’s logic can be hidden away as attributes which is a great idea. In fact, the templates are even valid XML which makes the creation of valid HTML pages a much more natural experience. Almost all XML tools and even HTML tools like Tidy will work flawlessly on Genshi templates due to these reasons.
Once you get used to Genshi’s templates, you might even use them for static web site designing. I am sure it will save you a lot of time whenever those last minute ‘sidebar redesigns for every page’ pops up.
